CULTURAL COACH: All we meet can boost our awareness

LINDA S. WALLACE

Published 6:30 am, Friday, January 13, 2006

Information is a precious asset because it can actually increase in value each time we share it with others.

The next time we visit with friends, families or neighbors, let us ask what they can teach us about cultural, racial and gender differences. After all, we don't need a computer or cell phone to have a large network. Growth occurs when we have enough friendly and insightful people in our lives exchanging ideas with us.

Over the past three years, I have learned that no coach will ever call the perfect game or have the best angle on every single play. It is so critical that we assemble a team of advisers to serve as our eyes and ears to help us analyze mistakes.

When I launched the Cultural Coach, I sought to create a forum where readers could share ideas and concerns regarding social diversity. The letters and e-mails I receive are helpful and vital to the column's quality. Many of you offered ideas to keep me going when I was discouraged and ready to give it up. Others have challenged my advice and, in doing so, helped me to expand my own cultural radar.

Recently, I wrote about the need for us to confront, rather than shy away from, bigots. Confrontation comes easy for me. As a journalist, I have had a lot of practice. It is not the only approach, as several kind people have reminded me.

I want to share a particular e-mail that prompted me to reconsider my actions. You might remember the column about my confrontation with a man standing near a Roman Catholic cathedral in Philadelphia, offering condoms to parishioners and yelling, "Have safe sex with priests." I walked over and asked him what he hoped to accomplish, and in doing so, put him on the spot. Another Catholic parishioner joined me.

That column prompted this e-mail from Allan Soffar of Houston. "I would have handled the situation differently," he began. "I would have asked the young man for all the condoms that he had. I would have thanked him and taken the condoms to my car. I would have then returned and told him that I was going to give the condoms to organizations that needed them to help in sex education and prevention of venereal diseases and asked him if I could meet him next week for a new supply of condoms. I would have thanked him for supplying the condoms for people who truly needed them. I would ask him his name so that I could tell the organizations who supplied these useful materials for society. Therefore, he could be informed that he was doing something good for society if he chose to donate more. If not, the action would have been a nonconfrontational way of ending the noise pollution and of showing the young man a better way to use the condoms and to help society in a practical and better way."

Allan found an approach that allows the young man to be a hero. My response, by contrast, caused the poor guy great discomfort. Whenever we honor the feelings of people who disagree with us, we gain credibility. Allan later reminded me that the idea actually came to him as a result of reading this column.

All of us need one or more cultural coaches. The more we debate and discuss these issues, the wiser we become. In 2006, let us resolve to identify people who can coach us and help us raise the level of our game.